Configure transfers, fallback, and business hours

Add a transfer when the agent should hand a caller to a person, a team, or another agent. You control the reason to transfer, what the caller and your team hear, and what happens if nobody answers.

Add the transfer

1. Open the call flow and, in the Settings column, click Add next to Functions.
2. In Add to your agent, under Built-in, click Call transfer. A transfer named "New Transfer" opens.
3. Under Name, rename it after the destination — for example "Service team".
4. Under Transfer to, choose A person or number or Another AI agent.
5. For a person or number: enter the Phone number (with country code, or a sip: address). Click Advanced type → if you need to transfer to a value from call data or a queue of numbers instead of a fixed number — Queue is available on Whisper and Warm only.
6. Under Hand-off style, choose Cold, Whisper, or Warm (Recommended). Read each description — Cold connects immediately with no chance to decline; Whisper briefs your team privately first, so they can accept or decline; Warm connects with an announcement your team hears as they pick up.
7. Fill in When should the agent transfer? — be specific about what does and doesn't qualify. This is available for both destination types.
8. Optionally fill in What the caller hears, or turn on Transfer silently if you want the agent to dial with no announcement.
9. For Warm, fill in Transfer greeting (what your team hears when they pick up). For Whisper, fill in Private briefing and If your team declines.
10. Open Ring time & fallback: set Ring for (15, 25, or 45 seconds), If no one answers (Keep helping the caller or Hang up politely), and If no one answers, the caller hears.
11. Guided hand-offs is on by default — it's a built-in instruction that makes the transfer sound natural instead of going quiet. Leave it on unless you've written your own wording above.
12. Changes save automatically. Click Publish Changes to publish them.

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Restrict when a destination is used (person or number transfers only)

1. In the same transfer, open Business hours routing and turn on Business Hours Routing. This replaces the destination field above — numbers are now set per time period.
2. Choose a Timezone for the schedule.
3. Turn on each day you're open and set its hours.
4. For During working hours: on Cold, enter one Destination number; on Whisper/Warm, add one or more Numbers, tried in order, with Add number. Write a Message to caller, or turn on Block transfers to say something instead of transferring during this period.
5. Set up After hours the same way. Every period needs at least one number, or Block transfers turned on.
6. Optionally, open Business holidays and turn on Observe Public Holidays.
7. Optionally, open Conditions and click Add condition group to set a rule the call must meet before this transfer can run.
8. Click Publish Changes.

Checking a transfer works

Transfers require a real phone call; they cannot be tested in a browser call. Use a destination you're authorised to test with. Test an answered transfer, an unanswered one, and — if you've set business hours — an out-of-hours call. Check what the caller and your team hear, and where an unanswered call goes. Check the call record before publishing the same change to a live flow customers are calling.

If a transfer isn't working

• Confirm the phone number is in international format, or the SIP address is correct.
• If using Business Hours Routing, check the day and time window, and that the active period has a number in it (not just Block transfers switched on by mistake).
• If using Conditions, confirm the call actually meets them.
• For a dynamic or queue destination, confirm the value actually contains something at the moment the transfer runs.
• If a phone system answers with its own menu, test that behaviour directly rather than assuming it forwards like a person would.

Related: Connect inbound calls, Adjust voice and speech, Test and publish.